Grand Canyon River Guides Oral History Collection
Kenton Grua Interview
Interview number: 53.23A
This is the River Runners Oral History Project. Recorded at Georgie White's birthday party in 1990, at Cliff Dweller’s Lodge. The interviewer is Lew Steiger. Gail Steiger runs the camera.
Steiger: Who is Georgie White, and what does she mean to you, and why would you want to come to this deal?
Grua: She was the first, she was Number One. (chuckles) She sort of started it all -Grand Old Lady of the Colorado. And what a lady! The coolest lady. Just her eyes and her way... there's nobody like her, she's one of a kind, broke the mold. (chuckles) And God, I hope she's down there forever. I mean, there's no such thing, but I hope they let her do it until the Canyon takes her, and that's how it should be, and that's probably how it will be, I'm sure. Like for myself! (laughs) That's how I want to do it too.
Steiger: You want to do it until you're gone, huh?
Grua: Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to go down there, and stay down there. Hopefully, we can let Georgie stay down there. Kind of hard to do, nowadays, but at least sprinkle me down there. (laughs) I'd rather let the ravens eat me, but sprinkle me down there, at least. By the time I die, maybe I can have the ravens smorgasbord on my bones. Leave my bones to bleach somewhere on some cliff.
Steiger: Who do you think was really the first one that ever ran the river?
Grua: John Wesley, I guess, and his boys.
Steiger: Do you really think they were the first ones?
Grua: I doubt if the Anasazi did.
Steiger: Really?
Grua: They probably crossed it, but I doubt if they were into recreational boating. (laughs) They were more pragmatic, they had other things to do, probably. They probably had boats, I'd say, to get back and forth, the places they crossed. But it would have been hard to do without a boat, or at least a darned good raft of some sort to get back and forth. You couldn't have walked.
Steiger: I've had this fantasy lately, I don't know, it just seems like if they were down there for 500-1,000 years or whatever, I can't believe there wasn't one time -and they had some kind... paddling logs across or whatever -that there wasn't some young buck that said, "[@# it], I'm going on down there."
Grua: Maybe! I mean, shoot, why not? They were down there a lot longer than we've been, so they could have got it together. They probably did have boats, you know, like dugouts or something, at least. Or maybe like skin boats or something that would have worked to get them back and forth without losing much ground. A log raft, unless you've got a pole and you can pole it across -and there's places, like at 36-mile route, there's no way you'd pole across there, it's way too deep in any water. And they crossed there -it was a route. So they had to have a boat to get across there -there's no other way. And they'd have had to paddle pretty hard, you know, just to get back and forth. But there's no evidence, I guess, archaeologically, that they had boats, that they ever ran the river, so I guess you'd have to go with that, (laughs) until they find one, and I doubt if they'd find one.
Steiger: I need like a thumbnail sketch. Can you give me a brief history of boating up to Georgie's time? You know, not like specifics, but just sort of give me a general description of what happened in that time.
Grua: Wow. Well, let's see, Powell, and then Stanton, twenty years later. Powell did two, one-and-a-half, down to Kanab the second time. And then Stanton and the railroad survey. They did their first half, and then came back and did their second half and made it all the way through. I guess it was 1890 by the time they got through. And then, oh man! (laughs) After a party like last night?! I have to give you a history?! (laughs) Flavell. . . . Oh, gosh. Galloway snuck a couple in there -Galloway-Stone, 1909, first "for the heck of it" trip like we do nowadays. And Kolb Brothers in 1911 and 1912: they'd have been the next guys. I guess Martin snuck one in there before Georgie, or so he claims. But I wonder about that. There's some people who say he did his first trip with Georgie, but he'd never admit to it. Actually, nah, I guess his first trip was like 1956, and it could have been with Georgie, and Georgie was down there about 1950 or maybe really late forties.
Steiger: That's Martin Litton?
Grua: Yeah, Martin Litton, "our man," "M.L." The guy we used to work for.
Steiger: So how'd you come to it?
Grua: I started out, old Shorty Burton took me on my first trip down through Yampa and Ladore, through Dinosaur. When we moved out there, when I was twelve years old. We moved from Salt Lake City to Vernal, Utah. My dad owned a truck line. He didn't like the idea of living in Salt Lake -it was too smokey and whatnot. I liked it, it was good skiing there in Salt Lake. I was kind of hating moving to Vernal but as it turned out, it was alright. We moved out there and I turned twelve and somewhere around -it wasn't on my birthday -but sort of for my twelfth birthday, on top of getting a bike that I still have, a ten-speed bike... we went on this river trip. We started at the Yampa, near Lodge Park or something like that. Went down through the Yampa to where it joins the Green at Echo Park and took out right there at the Monument headquarters. And Shorty Burton was the boatman. Did it in like a twenty-two-foot old bridge pontoon that Hatch rows, I think is still rowing up there. Shorty was great: taught me how to bake biscuits in a Dutch oven and stuff, let me row a lot. I was hooked! So then from there my dad bought an old ten-man raft with the bumper tube on it and everything. We rigged that up, put some oar locks on it, took it down the river quite a few times as I was growing up and going through high school and stuff. I was just waiting until I was eighteen to talk to Ted and say, "I'm ready for a job." I went out on winter break. Went to the U of U [University of Utah] for a quarter, and came home for a Christmas break and went and talked to Ted. I said, "Well, you know, I was hoping you might need somebody. I was hoping I might get a job up there in Dinosaur." Ted goes, "Well, you know, when could you start?" I said, "Well, probably . . . oh, next week is fine." "Get you on patching boats next week and see how you work out." So I quit school. My parents weren't too excited about it, but they knew I really wanted to do it, so they let me do it. I quit school -only for a quarter, of course (laughs) for the rest of the year there, and went to work for Ted. Patched boats all spring and about March -in those days, we started about March -I went down and did a training trip. There were like twelve trainees: Chuck Carpenter and Rick Petrillo -a bunch of oldtimers that aren't even around anymore. Whale was in there somewhere. Pat Conley -he was on that trip. We all piled into one training boat. There were so many of us, it wasn't that much fun to ride in the training boats. I rode with old Dave Bledsoe most of the time -he was one of the boatmen on the trip. There was, I don't know, gosh, must have been seven or eight boats on the trip -big old trip. They don't even allow that kind of trip any more. And made it around through the Canyon. The only rapid I actually motored was Lava Falls and I just about flipped. We left the side tubes on and we ran it down the right. I think they wanted to see some action, because they always took their side tubes off -well, they didn't even have side tubes in those days. They were old tail-dragger Hatch rigs. The only rig that had the -they called them "training wheels" in those days -the only rig that had the side tubes was the training boat. I think they were just lazy -they could have taken the side tubes off, no problem, but they thought, "Well, let's watch these trainees run this rig." And since I'd been running with Bledsoe all trip, and I hadn't run any big rapids -I'd just been riding with Bledsoe and he'd been talking me through it -they put me on the stick. And so I was running the motor and we probably dropped over about the ledge, I don't know. We were going down the right (laughs) but there was one big old wave right on top I remember. As we dropped over it, the transom broke, because it was only bolted on with like six ¼ inch bolts, and of the six, probably four of them were busted, and one side, all three of them busted that were holding one side on. Dropped it down, just about lost the darned transom, engine and everything. Of course the engine was chained to the transom. I just remember motoring along, and as soon as we dropped over that first drop, which was probably the right side of the ledge, my arm jerked way down. I was still holding onto the motor, but it was definitely swamped. I looked back there, and I couldn't see anything but my hand, and I knew I was hanging onto the handle, so I held onto it, and went down sideways through the big hole and almost flipped. It was close. It was high water. I mean, it was probably 18,000 [cfs]. We'd just get there early in the morning, as early as we could, because we'd always take the motors off and everything and just power over against the left shore and float down over the rocks -two guys rowing on an old Hatch tail-dragger rig.
Steiger: And that was the run?
Grua: And that was the run, to get as tight as you could on the left shore and just like slop her down over the rocks. It was a great run, actually worked good. I mean, those old boats had floors and stuff and you could take them out there, and you could flip in Lava. We flipped a couple of rigs there in those early years if you didn't get down there on the right side into that hole.
Steiger: What was it like running them, having to sit back there with the motor and stuff?
Grua: They were wild! Boy, you had to hang on. You had like three straps: you had one you put your toes under and one kind of scissored between your legs, and one that you held onto, a bucking strap, if you had to pull your engine, which you had to do often. You'd grab onto that and hoist the engine out, and hang on like crazy, because, boy, as you went over anything, it's like being on the back of a slingshot. It'd stretch your arms pretty good.
Steiger: What were those big trips like, and why would they do them?
Grua: Well, it was just, you know, geology charters or whatever. _______________ Don Barrs [sp?] used to work for. . . . I think he still is in Washington. He was like a geologist at Washington State, and he chartered some big ones. There was like one we did was 140 people, 17 boats. It was amazing! A firepit that was like twenty feet long! Just this huge fire pit. We'd get about a cord of wood for every night. That was the wildest days!
Steiger: A cord of wood just to cook dinner?
Grua: Yeah. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it took a lot of wood. It took a pile. In those days, shit, it was on most beaches. We'd purposely camp at the big camps: I think [we] camped at [Mile] 75, Nankoweap.
Steiger: It took a lot of wood to cook dinner?
Grua: Oh yeah.
Steiger: Okay, now tell me, "It took a lot of wood to cook dinner."
Grua: It took a lot of wood to cook dinner. Sorry. (laughs) A lot of wood to cook dinner. (laughter) Take 2!
Steiger: I didn't mean to interrupt you, either, but. . . . Well, did anybody think that that was anything unusual?
Grua: Oh, yeah, it was wild. I mean, we had. . . . Well, one boat was just kitchen. That was the training boat, was the kitchen boat. We had these old stakes that we'd drive into the ground, and then you'd just [have] fires in the sand in those days. And we just built this big long fire pit. It was six stakes long, and so you'd put like twelve griddles on and we'd just do -it was massive to do the cooking and whatnot for that big a size crew. But then we had this huge crew. We had, I think it was like nine trainees that were the "new guys" getting their first trip down there.
Steiger: And they had to cook?
Grua: Well, yeah, we all did it all. We weren't' like "we didn't have to cook." I mean, Bledsoe and the "old hands." Dennis Massey was on the trip. Heck, he'd had ten years' experience. He was ___________ I couldn't believe. He was an oldtimer, he'd been there forever. Yeah, we just all did it. Yeah, you were busy. It took a lot of work, there was a lot of people. We dropped them off at Phantom. We didn't take that many all the way through. It was a small trip, sixty-eight people or something like that (laughs) below Phantom, doing the lower raft, ten-day trips, taking out at Temple Bar, motor across the lake forever, camp out at Sandy Point. The lake was a lot lower then. There was like no way you could even get close to Pearce's. It was just one big mud flat back there. The river went on through, and there were mud bars clear out past Grand Wash Bay there.
Steiger: What were the people like, and what kind of time did they have?
Grua: Oh, had a great time! They've probably changed a little -especially motor people. They're more like the rowing people are nowadays, I think. They were great, really into it. It was really an adventure in those days -maybe more, even, than it is now with dories. Not really though, dories are always an adventure. Kind of can't help that.
Steiger: Well, what was it like to just get through then?
Grua: Same as it is now -great! (laughs) Good feeling. There was a lot different back then. I mean, back when I started, the tammies [phonetic spelling] were [no?] taller than I was, which isn't very tall. A lot more sand, a lot more beaches, a lot more wood. Boy, they were a mess though. We had firepits you wouldn't believe.
Steiger: What about toilets?
Grua: Huh? (laughs) Actually, on that trip, we dug pits, because there were just so damned many people that, yeah, you couldn't go high and far. But the general rule, and the general method in those days was "high and far." Until, you know, 1972 or 1973, before we started using any kind of port-a-potty. It might have even been after that. Actually, it's more like 1975 before the port-a-potties came in style.
So anyway, off that motor came -just to finish this trip, that first trip. The motor was just like hanging by one thing and underwater. We got through the rapid and didn't flip and we were all just like, "Whoa!" because it was really close. I mean, the boat was on it's side. I thought it was going over, everybody thought it was going over. And there's just nothing to do. The only thing I could do was hang onto that motor, because I didn't want to lose it. So as soon as we got through, Carpenter said, "God, what happened?!" I said, "Well, I don't know, but the motor is like. . . . Look!" My arm is like about two feet longer, the motor handle is underwater. "Jesus!" So he reached down there and grabbed it and picked it up and tied it back on with a piece of line, a piece of old sisal rope that we used to have, manila rope. And it took us clear past Lower Lava to dry the engine out and get the darned boat to run. Finally got it pulled into shore. Anyway, that was my training trip, and the next trip I had people! (laughs) A far cry from nowadays.
Steiger: What was that like? Did they know it was your first time?
Grua: Oh, heck no! And I lied about my age and everything. "Oh, yeah, I'm twenty-two." An old man! (laughs) "Yeah, I've been working down here for a couple of years now." (laughs) I had a fair amount of experience, but that was like one motor trip's experience was all I had. I'd done a lot of rowing up on the Green and Yampa up in Vernal, so I felt like I was a pretty good hand. I was confident. Had some pretty wild runs, though, over the years.
Steiger: When did you see your first dory?
Grua: First dory trip was. . . . Well, first I worked for Hatch for two years, and then I worked for Grand Canyon Expeditions for two more years, motors, hoping to get on rowing. Ron Smith had a petition he circulated around, "Ban Motors." And so I thought, "Well, that's great, I'm going to do that, I'm going to go for that. This guy is going to start rowing." That was kind of just. . . . I don't know what he had in mind, but he still doesn't row. He doesn't even own it anymore, but Grand Canyon Expeditions doesn't row any more than they did before. They keep saying they're gonna, but they still run motors. But I really wanted to get off motors and start rowing because I'd rowed up on the Green. That was how I learned to row, and I really liked rowing a little better than motoring. I don't know what it was about it. Then I was working for Ron Smith and this Martin Litton was moved in the second year that I was there, and rented one of Ron Smith's warehouses. He had these two warehouses that were an old lumber mill that he'd bought for $10,000 and almost nothing even in those days, in Kanab. One of them was just totally empty and only had part of a roof on it, but it was an acre of warehouse space. So he rented the space to Martin. I don't think he really realized, because there was all these hippies and stuff, and he was not really happy that they were there. They were kind of, you know, not quite what he was hoping, and they just all moved in, in their VW buses and whatnot. Jeff Clayton and all the oldtimers, Mike Davis, moved in there and set up shop with the dories. God, we'd all go over there and sit in those dories and go, "Man, you guys really row these through there?!" And these guys didn't know how to row at all. I mean, they'd just crash and burn. Every trip, it was like the dories would come out sinking and patched everywhere with duct tape and Marine-Tex and steel wool (chuckles). Hell, these wild patching techniques back in those days!
Steiger: Why did they want to run them?
Grua: Well it was just Martin. I mean Martin was . . . crazy. He just thought that somebody had to row real boats down there, wooden boats, traditional boats like the old days, like they used to use before they invented rubber rafts. And I don't think anybody ever would have thought of it, except Martin. I think once rafts came in style, that would have been all anybody would ever do, even now. But Martin -he was a purist and an environmentalist. Definitely had values and standards of how it should be done, and so he started running these dories. They worked good. They really did work, even though you can't hit rocks with them and stuff, they sure are a lot of fun to row. Pretty addicting overall. Anybody who rows one very much kind of gets the idea they're the best boat to row in the Canyon.
Steiger: What was it you told me after the first dory trip we ever did?
Grua: Yeah. It was just like anybody. I think I was no different than anybody: you row a dory and -just like you -you row a dory and you go, "God!" (laughs) I mean, it adds the challenge, it adds that something extra that you'll never get tired of doing this, that you could do this until you died, and then you could get born again and do it another ten, twenty, fifty lifetimes; and you could do it straight through the year, all year long, and you'd never, ever get tired of doing it -never could. Actually, it gets better, I think, with every trip. And then just the dories: they're just alive. They're. . . . You know, they're boats. They take something extra to get them through there. But it's not even that, it's just that. . . . I mean, they're too much fun to row down there! (laughs) It's the funnest thing there is to do, and you could never do anything else once you start doing them -and at least be happy. You might do something else because you felt guilty because you weren't really . . . doing anything with your life, you know. But between them and being in the Grand Canyon, yeah, you just could never do anything else once you start rowing dories -you're hooked. Best drug in the world! (aside about video tape)
Steiger: That was great, Kenton.
***
Steiger: (aside about noise outside)
Grua: It's amazing, you know, seeing how old people are looking. It's just like the old guys like. . . . Georgie, she doesn't look a lot older, but everybody else does! I look around at everybody, and go, "All these guys look pretty old." And then I look in the mirror! (laughs) And I go, "Whoa! Yeah, me too." Looking a little older, just around the edges.
Steiger: It doesn't take very long, does it?
Grua: Eyes don't change, though. I mean, that's what's cool about people: their eyes kind of stay about the same. That's what's great about Georgie: she's just ageless. Her eyes are going to look just that steel blue until the day she dies. They've never changed.
Steiger: Why do you think everybody came here? Can we go over that again? Was it just for Georgie?
Grua: Well, I think we all came here because Georgie is kind of our hero. I mean, you can't help but love her -she's a character. I mean, everybody down here is. That's what's so cool about it, and I think most of us came because we all knew that most of us would come, and we all wanted to see us. And that's what the River Guides is so cool about. Someday it'd be nice to just get together like this about once a year, maybe twice. And we kind of do. You know, it's getting more and more, there's more and more people at each meeting. And it's just great to get together and go over what occurred in the last six months or a year. It happened, it's kind of like having a big family. The older we get and the more it goes on, the better it is. And it just, I'm sure will just keep getting better, hopefully. (laughs) Because it's all there is, really, is each other -that's all we've got.
Steiger: Do you think we can get around this Park Service stuff?
Grua: Oh yeah, we'll outlive 'em! (laughs) There's no doubt about it -they all move on. And we've seen them come and go. I mean, shoot, I haven't been here that long, and I've seen six superintendents come and go. You get the bad ones and you get the good ones, and actually, what we need to remember is, that every time one comes in, they're absolutely clueless, and you've kind of got to treat them like you treat a dude, you know. You show them the Canyon, and you show them who you are, and kind of just wow them a little bit, and they're a little easier to deal with. If you don't wow 'em, then yeah, they don't give you the respect you deserve. I mean, I guess you have to. . . . Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's give them a little respect -at least realize that they need a little coaching to realize where they fit into the picture and where we fit in. I mean, we're the ones who really have sort of given our lives to the Canyon -not that that's good or bad, but we care about the place, maybe even more than they do. But you can't just tell them that, you gotta just show them that.
Steiger: Why do you think that is? Why do you think wefeel like that?
Grua: It's the Canyon. It grabs you. It's like "taking the poisoned-pill." You got to have it. After you've had it once, you've gotta have it, it's a drug. It grabs you. I mean, Martin used to say that a lot. It's almost scary when you go down there for your first time, because you realize that, boy, if you do this again, you're going to want to do it again, even more, and again, and you just might end up spending your whole danged life here, and not get anything worthwhile done! (laughs) I agree with everything except the worthwhile part. I think it's really worthwhile, what we're doing down there as river guides.
Steiger: How come?
Grua: We touch a lot of people. We bring a lot of people along and change their lives, permanently probably. Not even probably -for sure. It's just a big family. It's what life is all about, I guess: just passing on the knowledge.
Steiger: Why do you think the place does that to people? What is it about it?
Grua: Well, the place is just so awesome. It's so. . . .
Steiger: Well, do you think the geology has anything to do with it? You know, when they start thinking about. . . . (aside about tape)
Steiger: What is it about the Canyon that. . . . Do you think that the geology has anything to do with it? I say this, and I think about your geology stories and stuff.
Grua: Well, I think that, yeah, what you see is sort of a progression of time, and sort of a timelessness, but an "instant flash picture" of how the earth happens, how it works. Really. I mean, it's the only place in the world, I think, anyway, that you can be a mile deep in the earth and still be getting a sunburn and getting wet and looking up. And you just look up at all this, you see all this time that it took, and yet you realize that all the time that it took to carve the Canyon was just like a couple of days, if you stuck all the rest of it into the space of a year. All the rest of the earth's history, wrapped into one. Yeah, it's more than you can even comprehend, even if you understand it.
Steiger: So what do you think happens to the people you're taking down the river now? What are they looking for when they get there, and what do they find, do you think, on these trips?
Grua: I think when they first get there they're intimidated, most people. I was. I mean, I just kind of go on how I was my first trip. You're just blown away that this river could cut this canyon, that could just go on and on and on. It seems like as the trip goes on, you get into it a few days and it just goes on and on and the Canyon is different every day, different every minute and every second. Huge river and just this unfathomable amount of water is flowing by over these rapids and flats, and the walls just keep getting higher, and it just keeps getting better and better and better and better every day, and it just seems like it's going to go on forever, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's over. You just go, "Wow!" My first trip was like that. And I think most people's first trip, when they come down there, is just like this. . . . It's kind of like it's going on forever and it's like this whole lifetime that goes on and you start out this little baby, and you grow up, but before you know it -and it's probably just like being alive -it's all over, and you want to do it again. It's probably like being alive, really. You know, start out as a baby, and before you know it. . . . You think, as you're really young and you're growing up, you think, "Boy, this is slow! When is my next birthday going to happen?" And you get to be about our age and you go, "Whew! Oh man, I'm not going to really get it all done that I want to do. I want to come back and do this again!" And that's kind of how a river trip is. By the time you get to the end, you go, "Oops! Boy, that went fast! I've got to try that again -go back and run Lava one more time, or run Crystal." Or, "I want to climb up to that cave. I haven't got that checked out." Your list keeps getting bigger and bigger, all the things you've got to do every trip. So you kind of feel like "those poor people," when they first do their first trip, yeah, that was the worst. I always thought, "Boy, I gotta come back and do that again." And most of them, I think, leave going that way. Or not most of them, but a good bunch of them. It doesn't touch everybody like that -some people are just intimidated by it and don't really get past that, maybe. And their reasons for coming in the first place were to tell everybody they came, "Yeah, I did the Grand Canyon," and stuff. And so maybe some of them don't get touched. But even a lot of them do.
Steiger: Do you think it makes them change what they're doing back home?
Grua: Some of them. Boy, yeah, it's caused more than one life change: major, radical divorce, or quit their job and come out and try to do the Canyon. There's a lot of people in Flag[staff] that I've done that to -there they are.
Steiger: So what is it about dories?
Grua: Well, the dories just feel different. They rock around when you step on them. You don't have to blow them up. They just feel different. They're wood, and you know they're like rowing an eggshell down the river, that they could. . . . It's like, even pull in wrong, and you can be sinking. And that adds that element. But it isn't that, it's how they feel in the white water, and even in the flat water. You're just floating on a boat, you know, you're not on a raft. Rafts are cool. Rafts are really neat. I like rowing rafts. After I've been rowing dories for a while, sometimes it's nice to get on a raft and you can pull in any way you want. Or "oops!" if you went over a rock, "Whew! Glad I wasn't in a dory!" (laughs) But there's nothing like them -they just. . . . It's the feel, it's the response, it's the way they handle, it's the way you can like have it at just the right angle at just the right place and you shoot across the river ten feet without even pulling or taking a stroke or anything. You're just like moving. And the way they dive into a big old wave like #6 in Hermit and you're looking at that sucker and you've got it straight and everything's just right, and you see the wave just building and opening for you, and you just dive down the front side of it and up the backside and the boat shoots up to the sky. There's just nothing like it! You just feel yourself, like zero Gs and you're up there and you're hanging onto your oars and your bow is dropping down over the top of the wave into the next wave. It's just like. . . . God! There's just nothing better! no feeling. And a raft, you know, you kind of like (pffttt) into it and over. They're great if you've never been in a dory, but once you've been in a dory, that's it! It's the poison pill, you're finished, you're through, nothing will ever be quite as much fun as rowing one of those dories.
Steiger: I've been trying to explain that to Gail [Lew’s brother, who is running the camera]! (laughs) He doesn't get it yet, but one of these days.
Grua: (to Gail) You haven't been in a dory yet? Gail: (inaudible)
Grua: Oh man, we'll have to take my boat down for a training run, as soon as I get it built. I've got to do that, and a boat for Denise this winter. I don't know how I'm going to do it.
Steiger: Well, holler. Get me in there, let's do some marathon days. (inaudible) I'd love to help you, really would. ...Well how do you think it is for the people to ride in them?
Grua: It's the same way. It's really wild riding in a dory. I mean, I don't know, I think it's definitely more fun to row them. I like riding in the back. That's a great ride, especially if you're on the back seat, because you just get this incredible. . . . It's like in the old Hatch rigs, only like times ten million, the feeling of the slingshot and being on the super rollercoaster ride. Yeah, you're clearing the wave, and it's even more than standing there in the middle. But yeah, riding on them is fun. And in the front, wow, it's just like "face into the water." With a dory, it's different -even a rowing raft... in a motor rig, you're way up there, and you kind of feel like you're a little bit further away from the experience. You're insulated a little bit from the river. You know the motor rig is just going to deal with it. You're not going to have to move real quick, you're not going to have to dive into that high side or you're upside down. Or you're not going to have to deal with being upside down. You're probably not going to flip. Then a raft, it's even that same way. They're so stable. I mean, they're twice as stable as a dory. I think a dory is as stable as a raft if you hit it straight, maybe more so, if you hit something straight. But in a raft you can hit something a little off, which is when you get in trouble- any time you hit it a little bit off... in a dory, if you're a little bit off, you'd better be doing the right thing. And the right thing is not necessarily hit it straight or hang on or anything else, it's high side. And you'd better hope all your people are doing it too, or you're upside down. It's that element of "Yeah, this is real life, and we could be swimming." Once you've done it, then you really realize, "Yeah, this is. . . ." And it's easy to flip, it's really easy. (laughs) You know, I went for about three years without flipping, when I first started rowing dories, and I was thinking, "Oh man, this is pretty easy." I mean, you could tell they're tippy and stuff, but if you're right on, the high side is just right. . . . But sooner or later you don't, and you go over, and you just go, "Whoa! (laughs) this is pretty serious! I'm upside down! What now?!" Even that's okay, as long as you don't trash your boat, which is often the case. I think I've flipped, how many times? eight now. And of those eight, I've hurt my boat all but about three times, and we've had to do some work when you get home.
But that's just. . . . Yeah, the feeling of a golden trip in a dory, after you've. . . . And it doesn't matter how many you've done, it never will matter how many trips that you've done: you do a golden trip and it feels just as good as the last time you had one, and you want to go have another one.
Steiger: That's the poison pill right there.
Grua: And the only way to really know it is to do it. It'd be the best thing if every boatman down there, every boatman that's really a true boatman that loves the Grand Canyon -motorboatmen especially -could at least once -of course, you can't do it once -could row a dory through the Grand Canyon. . . . I think everybody kind of feels that way. I know when I was running those motor rigs, that's what I wanted to do, as soon as I saw those dories.
I saw Martin in 1969 when he did his Major Powell trip, and it was a scream. Martin Litton standing there, his arm tucked into his pants. (laughs) Don't know what he was doing with his hand! (laughs)
Steiger: Into his pants?
Grua: Well, he had this coat on, you know, and an empty sleeve, newspaper down inside the sleeve to make it look like he had half an arm like Major Powell, and he was playing Major Powell and all that. It was pretty hokey. All the boats had these ten names, each of Powell's boats. The dories didn't really look much like Powell's boats, you know, in actuality, looking back on it. They went through and did this Powell centennial trip. See, 1969 was a hundred years after Major Powell, and that was my first year. And so I was running for Hatch, did a lot of trips that year. There were two competing wooden boat companies doing a Powell sort of centennial trip. Of course, you know, rubber boats wouldn't really do for Powell. So back in those days, Gaylord Staveley had. . . . Because Nevills had died several years before that in a plane crash, Nevills and his wife. But he ran the only wooden boat company, called Mexican Hat Expeditions. Gaylord Staveley who had married Nevills' daughter, Joan, was running Mexican Hat Expeditions, and not really digging it too much. He never really, as far as I could tell, enjoyed rowing wooden boats. Some people get intimidated by them. I've never run one of those old cataract boats that Nevills ran. But anyway, he was not really into them, and he was more of a businessman than old Martin. So his idea, and not very long after that centennial trip he put it into effect, was to take Norm's company and turn it into a real business and run motor trips down through there, and that's what they're doing now as Canyoneers. It happened in the early 1970s, before 1973.
But they were doing a trip, and so was Martin Litton. Got to see both of them going through there. Of course Martin was kind of supported. Martin, at that time, worked for the L.A. Times, I think it was, and Sunset. So he had support for the trip, and Gaylord never did, I don't think, quite forgive Martin for that, because he felt like he was the wooden boat company. Martin had privately done a few trips through there, but he wasn't even a company in 1969 -he started in 1971 as a company. But he did the centennial trip that got all the press. And Gaylord's trip got coverage by a few of the little local papers, maybe the Phoenix paper covered it, and maybe the Flagstaff Sun covered it, but. . . .
Steiger: When and how did Martin decide to name the boats?
Grua: Well, that was before I came there. Martin Litton was on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club, and he was pretty instrumental in keeping the dams out of the Grand Canyon, and was always into fighting -still is -the environmental battles and the Sequoias and stuff. I don't know how he came about it, but it was a darned good idea to name the boats after places that man had pretty much done a number on, at least for our lifetimes.
Steiger: What are some of those names?
Grua: My old boat that I got. . . . Well, first I rowed the Chattahoochee. I don't know how he came across that one. Actually, there was an early chapter of the Sierra Club that really helped out in the Grand Canyon dam battles -I think it was the Georgia chapter -and they called it the Chattahoochee Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Chattahoochee River flows down through there -Georgia and the panhandle of Florida out into the Gulf. And they did quite a number on it, channelizing it and building dams, and what they do to rivers back there. They pretty much did it to all of them. And he liked the name. And that was one of the early boats: the Chattahoochee was one of the first five or six boats that he had. The Emerald Mile was the first one, and that was his pet baby, next to the Grand Canyon, I'd say, was Redwoods National Park. He was probably the sole person responsible for that, if it came right down to it, for who got the redwoods set aside in Redwoods National Park. It was one of the last national parks to be established. He worked long and hard on that. The Emerald Mile, which was the first boat that was built by Jerry Briggs, which is what most of our wood boats are, that we're still running, was. . . . It was actually his favorite name, I think.
Steiger: What were some of the other ones?
Grua: Oh, the Music Temple, Mille Crag Bend. He named them after a lot of things: Diablo Canyon -that was his kind of favorite boat after he'd got his fleet established. He had this monster boat built -way too high on the sides. I always told him, "How about if I take a Skill saw and just kind of go around the old boat and cut it down about three or four inches on the gunnels and make it into a more reasonable-size boat for you." "Oooooo," he'd always say, "no, way!" I'd say, "Well, I'll even do it for free." I kept. . . . Did it up until just a couple of years ago when I started standing up and decided that was the way to go. And now actually the gunnels on the boat that I'm building are not quite as high as the gunnels on the Diablo Canyon, but way higher than I used to think that you'd ever want to have your gunnels! (laughs) Kind of funny how I came around.
Steiger: Give me a few more names.
Grua: Oh, let's see, more names. God, I know them like my own kids, except I don't have any kids! (laughs) After a party like last night, it's hard. Well, there's the. . . .
Steiger: (inaudible)
Grua: Yeah, I ought to know that one, huh? Rowed the Tuolomne all year this year. First time I've rowed a company boat since the Chattahoochee, since more than like twelve years. Rowed the Tuolomne all year, and the Phantom, the Dark Canyon, Makaha. Oh, God, some beautiful names. A lot of them from Glen Canyon. Okeechobee from the swamp. Okeechobee, yeah, from the Okeechobee close to the Okefenokee Swamp -places they've drained. All over, you know. I guess he got kind of international: the Makaha is in Hawaii. All the aluminum boats that he named after the aluminum factories up in British Columbia: the Ootsa Lake and. . . . Gadzooks! My memory, Lew!
Steiger: That's okay. Mono Lake?
Grua: Mono Lake, Colorado, Lake Tahoe. We got probably well over thirty dories, altogether: Bright Angel. I kind of remember one called Bright Angel, one of my favorite names. My next boat, the Grand Canyon. I don't know if we've screwed that one up or not. I think it's pretty reasonable, though. Definitely the last forty miles of the Grand Canyon is kind of messed up. The whole thing is messed up. I mean, you know, Glen Canyon Dam "did it" to the Grand Canyon. There's no. . . . The only way we could really mitigate what happened -and even then it wouldn't mitigate what happened by building the dams -is getting rid of them. Some day, that'll probably happen. It might not be in our lifetimes, but then again it might. They almost went in 1983 -both of them, actually. A lot of damage to Hoover Dam. But of the things that I would like to see happen more than anything else, that's probably, yeah, I'd like to see maybe Hoover Dam go first, just because I never did get to see Glen Canyon and I get to see that lower part of the Grand Canyon all the time. They really destroyed. . . . There's something about it -I think it's the quiet, that gets to me the most. You get down there, and get through Bridge Canyon Rapid, get on down to about [Mile] 242 where we camp that last night, or beyond there, and you camp and you can hear a pin drop in the Canyon. It's like they've sort of just snuffed out the life of the Canyon. Everything is just sort of in a coma -it's not really dead, but it's not even breathing on its own and it needs the river to be back, and it needs to be making that river sound. That river sound, that's what it takes. It's hard to even sleep down there. You know, you go to sleep on the rig, and I'm up all night -it's too quiet, something's missing. So, yeah, if I could change anything, it would be [to] get rid of those dams. Maybe I will someday, but probably not 'til I get to be Georgie's age. (laughs) See if I can do something about it. I pray about it a lot.
Steiger: Well, it'll happen over time, though, won't it?
Grua: Over time, yeah. In just a fraction. I mean, since the Grand Canyon has been as deep as it is now, which is probably 30-40 million years, which is, if you put it all into the space of a year, a few days... then the Grand Canyon has been dammed up with one lake. A million years ago it was like more than twice the size of Hoover and Lake Powell put together, and it didn't last more than maybe 10-15 thousand years, which is nothing. It's a long time to us, because our perspective in that year is about a half-a-second if we live to be as old as old Georgie, and doing pretty good if you get that far. So (laughs) you know. . . . Grand Canyon.
[END OF INTERVIEW]

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Grand Canyon River Guides Oral History Collection
Kenton Grua Interview
Interview number: 53.23A
This is the River Runners Oral History Project. Recorded at Georgie White's birthday party in 1990, at Cliff Dweller’s Lodge. The interviewer is Lew Steiger. Gail Steiger runs the camera.
Steiger: Who is Georgie White, and what does she mean to you, and why would you want to come to this deal?
Grua: She was the first, she was Number One. (chuckles) She sort of started it all -Grand Old Lady of the Colorado. And what a lady! The coolest lady. Just her eyes and her way... there's nobody like her, she's one of a kind, broke the mold. (chuckles) And God, I hope she's down there forever. I mean, there's no such thing, but I hope they let her do it until the Canyon takes her, and that's how it should be, and that's probably how it will be, I'm sure. Like for myself! (laughs) That's how I want to do it too.
Steiger: You want to do it until you're gone, huh?
Grua: Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to go down there, and stay down there. Hopefully, we can let Georgie stay down there. Kind of hard to do, nowadays, but at least sprinkle me down there. (laughs) I'd rather let the ravens eat me, but sprinkle me down there, at least. By the time I die, maybe I can have the ravens smorgasbord on my bones. Leave my bones to bleach somewhere on some cliff.
Steiger: Who do you think was really the first one that ever ran the river?
Grua: John Wesley, I guess, and his boys.
Steiger: Do you really think they were the first ones?
Grua: I doubt if the Anasazi did.
Steiger: Really?
Grua: They probably crossed it, but I doubt if they were into recreational boating. (laughs) They were more pragmatic, they had other things to do, probably. They probably had boats, I'd say, to get back and forth, the places they crossed. But it would have been hard to do without a boat, or at least a darned good raft of some sort to get back and forth. You couldn't have walked.
Steiger: I've had this fantasy lately, I don't know, it just seems like if they were down there for 500-1,000 years or whatever, I can't believe there wasn't one time -and they had some kind... paddling logs across or whatever -that there wasn't some young buck that said, "[@# it], I'm going on down there."
Grua: Maybe! I mean, shoot, why not? They were down there a lot longer than we've been, so they could have got it together. They probably did have boats, you know, like dugouts or something, at least. Or maybe like skin boats or something that would have worked to get them back and forth without losing much ground. A log raft, unless you've got a pole and you can pole it across -and there's places, like at 36-mile route, there's no way you'd pole across there, it's way too deep in any water. And they crossed there -it was a route. So they had to have a boat to get across there -there's no other way. And they'd have had to paddle pretty hard, you know, just to get back and forth. But there's no evidence, I guess, archaeologically, that they had boats, that they ever ran the river, so I guess you'd have to go with that, (laughs) until they find one, and I doubt if they'd find one.
Steiger: I need like a thumbnail sketch. Can you give me a brief history of boating up to Georgie's time? You know, not like specifics, but just sort of give me a general description of what happened in that time.
Grua: Wow. Well, let's see, Powell, and then Stanton, twenty years later. Powell did two, one-and-a-half, down to Kanab the second time. And then Stanton and the railroad survey. They did their first half, and then came back and did their second half and made it all the way through. I guess it was 1890 by the time they got through. And then, oh man! (laughs) After a party like last night?! I have to give you a history?! (laughs) Flavell. . . . Oh, gosh. Galloway snuck a couple in there -Galloway-Stone, 1909, first "for the heck of it" trip like we do nowadays. And Kolb Brothers in 1911 and 1912: they'd have been the next guys. I guess Martin snuck one in there before Georgie, or so he claims. But I wonder about that. There's some people who say he did his first trip with Georgie, but he'd never admit to it. Actually, nah, I guess his first trip was like 1956, and it could have been with Georgie, and Georgie was down there about 1950 or maybe really late forties.
Steiger: That's Martin Litton?
Grua: Yeah, Martin Litton, "our man," "M.L." The guy we used to work for.
Steiger: So how'd you come to it?
Grua: I started out, old Shorty Burton took me on my first trip down through Yampa and Ladore, through Dinosaur. When we moved out there, when I was twelve years old. We moved from Salt Lake City to Vernal, Utah. My dad owned a truck line. He didn't like the idea of living in Salt Lake -it was too smokey and whatnot. I liked it, it was good skiing there in Salt Lake. I was kind of hating moving to Vernal but as it turned out, it was alright. We moved out there and I turned twelve and somewhere around -it wasn't on my birthday -but sort of for my twelfth birthday, on top of getting a bike that I still have, a ten-speed bike... we went on this river trip. We started at the Yampa, near Lodge Park or something like that. Went down through the Yampa to where it joins the Green at Echo Park and took out right there at the Monument headquarters. And Shorty Burton was the boatman. Did it in like a twenty-two-foot old bridge pontoon that Hatch rows, I think is still rowing up there. Shorty was great: taught me how to bake biscuits in a Dutch oven and stuff, let me row a lot. I was hooked! So then from there my dad bought an old ten-man raft with the bumper tube on it and everything. We rigged that up, put some oar locks on it, took it down the river quite a few times as I was growing up and going through high school and stuff. I was just waiting until I was eighteen to talk to Ted and say, "I'm ready for a job." I went out on winter break. Went to the U of U [University of Utah] for a quarter, and came home for a Christmas break and went and talked to Ted. I said, "Well, you know, I was hoping you might need somebody. I was hoping I might get a job up there in Dinosaur." Ted goes, "Well, you know, when could you start?" I said, "Well, probably . . . oh, next week is fine." "Get you on patching boats next week and see how you work out." So I quit school. My parents weren't too excited about it, but they knew I really wanted to do it, so they let me do it. I quit school -only for a quarter, of course (laughs) for the rest of the year there, and went to work for Ted. Patched boats all spring and about March -in those days, we started about March -I went down and did a training trip. There were like twelve trainees: Chuck Carpenter and Rick Petrillo -a bunch of oldtimers that aren't even around anymore. Whale was in there somewhere. Pat Conley -he was on that trip. We all piled into one training boat. There were so many of us, it wasn't that much fun to ride in the training boats. I rode with old Dave Bledsoe most of the time -he was one of the boatmen on the trip. There was, I don't know, gosh, must have been seven or eight boats on the trip -big old trip. They don't even allow that kind of trip any more. And made it around through the Canyon. The only rapid I actually motored was Lava Falls and I just about flipped. We left the side tubes on and we ran it down the right. I think they wanted to see some action, because they always took their side tubes off -well, they didn't even have side tubes in those days. They were old tail-dragger Hatch rigs. The only rig that had the -they called them "training wheels" in those days -the only rig that had the side tubes was the training boat. I think they were just lazy -they could have taken the side tubes off, no problem, but they thought, "Well, let's watch these trainees run this rig." And since I'd been running with Bledsoe all trip, and I hadn't run any big rapids -I'd just been riding with Bledsoe and he'd been talking me through it -they put me on the stick. And so I was running the motor and we probably dropped over about the ledge, I don't know. We were going down the right (laughs) but there was one big old wave right on top I remember. As we dropped over it, the transom broke, because it was only bolted on with like six ¼ inch bolts, and of the six, probably four of them were busted, and one side, all three of them busted that were holding one side on. Dropped it down, just about lost the darned transom, engine and everything. Of course the engine was chained to the transom. I just remember motoring along, and as soon as we dropped over that first drop, which was probably the right side of the ledge, my arm jerked way down. I was still holding onto the motor, but it was definitely swamped. I looked back there, and I couldn't see anything but my hand, and I knew I was hanging onto the handle, so I held onto it, and went down sideways through the big hole and almost flipped. It was close. It was high water. I mean, it was probably 18,000 [cfs]. We'd just get there early in the morning, as early as we could, because we'd always take the motors off and everything and just power over against the left shore and float down over the rocks -two guys rowing on an old Hatch tail-dragger rig.
Steiger: And that was the run?
Grua: And that was the run, to get as tight as you could on the left shore and just like slop her down over the rocks. It was a great run, actually worked good. I mean, those old boats had floors and stuff and you could take them out there, and you could flip in Lava. We flipped a couple of rigs there in those early years if you didn't get down there on the right side into that hole.
Steiger: What was it like running them, having to sit back there with the motor and stuff?
Grua: They were wild! Boy, you had to hang on. You had like three straps: you had one you put your toes under and one kind of scissored between your legs, and one that you held onto, a bucking strap, if you had to pull your engine, which you had to do often. You'd grab onto that and hoist the engine out, and hang on like crazy, because, boy, as you went over anything, it's like being on the back of a slingshot. It'd stretch your arms pretty good.
Steiger: What were those big trips like, and why would they do them?
Grua: Well, it was just, you know, geology charters or whatever. _______________ Don Barrs [sp?] used to work for. . . . I think he still is in Washington. He was like a geologist at Washington State, and he chartered some big ones. There was like one we did was 140 people, 17 boats. It was amazing! A firepit that was like twenty feet long! Just this huge fire pit. We'd get about a cord of wood for every night. That was the wildest days!
Steiger: A cord of wood just to cook dinner?
Grua: Yeah. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it took a lot of wood. It took a pile. In those days, shit, it was on most beaches. We'd purposely camp at the big camps: I think [we] camped at [Mile] 75, Nankoweap.
Steiger: It took a lot of wood to cook dinner?
Grua: Oh yeah.
Steiger: Okay, now tell me, "It took a lot of wood to cook dinner."
Grua: It took a lot of wood to cook dinner. Sorry. (laughs) A lot of wood to cook dinner. (laughter) Take 2!
Steiger: I didn't mean to interrupt you, either, but. . . . Well, did anybody think that that was anything unusual?
Grua: Oh, yeah, it was wild. I mean, we had. . . . Well, one boat was just kitchen. That was the training boat, was the kitchen boat. We had these old stakes that we'd drive into the ground, and then you'd just [have] fires in the sand in those days. And we just built this big long fire pit. It was six stakes long, and so you'd put like twelve griddles on and we'd just do -it was massive to do the cooking and whatnot for that big a size crew. But then we had this huge crew. We had, I think it was like nine trainees that were the "new guys" getting their first trip down there.
Steiger: And they had to cook?
Grua: Well, yeah, we all did it all. We weren't' like "we didn't have to cook." I mean, Bledsoe and the "old hands." Dennis Massey was on the trip. Heck, he'd had ten years' experience. He was ___________ I couldn't believe. He was an oldtimer, he'd been there forever. Yeah, we just all did it. Yeah, you were busy. It took a lot of work, there was a lot of people. We dropped them off at Phantom. We didn't take that many all the way through. It was a small trip, sixty-eight people or something like that (laughs) below Phantom, doing the lower raft, ten-day trips, taking out at Temple Bar, motor across the lake forever, camp out at Sandy Point. The lake was a lot lower then. There was like no way you could even get close to Pearce's. It was just one big mud flat back there. The river went on through, and there were mud bars clear out past Grand Wash Bay there.
Steiger: What were the people like, and what kind of time did they have?
Grua: Oh, had a great time! They've probably changed a little -especially motor people. They're more like the rowing people are nowadays, I think. They were great, really into it. It was really an adventure in those days -maybe more, even, than it is now with dories. Not really though, dories are always an adventure. Kind of can't help that.
Steiger: Well, what was it like to just get through then?
Grua: Same as it is now -great! (laughs) Good feeling. There was a lot different back then. I mean, back when I started, the tammies [phonetic spelling] were [no?] taller than I was, which isn't very tall. A lot more sand, a lot more beaches, a lot more wood. Boy, they were a mess though. We had firepits you wouldn't believe.
Steiger: What about toilets?
Grua: Huh? (laughs) Actually, on that trip, we dug pits, because there were just so damned many people that, yeah, you couldn't go high and far. But the general rule, and the general method in those days was "high and far." Until, you know, 1972 or 1973, before we started using any kind of port-a-potty. It might have even been after that. Actually, it's more like 1975 before the port-a-potties came in style.
So anyway, off that motor came -just to finish this trip, that first trip. The motor was just like hanging by one thing and underwater. We got through the rapid and didn't flip and we were all just like, "Whoa!" because it was really close. I mean, the boat was on it's side. I thought it was going over, everybody thought it was going over. And there's just nothing to do. The only thing I could do was hang onto that motor, because I didn't want to lose it. So as soon as we got through, Carpenter said, "God, what happened?!" I said, "Well, I don't know, but the motor is like. . . . Look!" My arm is like about two feet longer, the motor handle is underwater. "Jesus!" So he reached down there and grabbed it and picked it up and tied it back on with a piece of line, a piece of old sisal rope that we used to have, manila rope. And it took us clear past Lower Lava to dry the engine out and get the darned boat to run. Finally got it pulled into shore. Anyway, that was my training trip, and the next trip I had people! (laughs) A far cry from nowadays.
Steiger: What was that like? Did they know it was your first time?
Grua: Oh, heck no! And I lied about my age and everything. "Oh, yeah, I'm twenty-two." An old man! (laughs) "Yeah, I've been working down here for a couple of years now." (laughs) I had a fair amount of experience, but that was like one motor trip's experience was all I had. I'd done a lot of rowing up on the Green and Yampa up in Vernal, so I felt like I was a pretty good hand. I was confident. Had some pretty wild runs, though, over the years.
Steiger: When did you see your first dory?
Grua: First dory trip was. . . . Well, first I worked for Hatch for two years, and then I worked for Grand Canyon Expeditions for two more years, motors, hoping to get on rowing. Ron Smith had a petition he circulated around, "Ban Motors." And so I thought, "Well, that's great, I'm going to do that, I'm going to go for that. This guy is going to start rowing." That was kind of just. . . . I don't know what he had in mind, but he still doesn't row. He doesn't even own it anymore, but Grand Canyon Expeditions doesn't row any more than they did before. They keep saying they're gonna, but they still run motors. But I really wanted to get off motors and start rowing because I'd rowed up on the Green. That was how I learned to row, and I really liked rowing a little better than motoring. I don't know what it was about it. Then I was working for Ron Smith and this Martin Litton was moved in the second year that I was there, and rented one of Ron Smith's warehouses. He had these two warehouses that were an old lumber mill that he'd bought for $10,000 and almost nothing even in those days, in Kanab. One of them was just totally empty and only had part of a roof on it, but it was an acre of warehouse space. So he rented the space to Martin. I don't think he really realized, because there was all these hippies and stuff, and he was not really happy that they were there. They were kind of, you know, not quite what he was hoping, and they just all moved in, in their VW buses and whatnot. Jeff Clayton and all the oldtimers, Mike Davis, moved in there and set up shop with the dories. God, we'd all go over there and sit in those dories and go, "Man, you guys really row these through there?!" And these guys didn't know how to row at all. I mean, they'd just crash and burn. Every trip, it was like the dories would come out sinking and patched everywhere with duct tape and Marine-Tex and steel wool (chuckles). Hell, these wild patching techniques back in those days!
Steiger: Why did they want to run them?
Grua: Well it was just Martin. I mean Martin was . . . crazy. He just thought that somebody had to row real boats down there, wooden boats, traditional boats like the old days, like they used to use before they invented rubber rafts. And I don't think anybody ever would have thought of it, except Martin. I think once rafts came in style, that would have been all anybody would ever do, even now. But Martin -he was a purist and an environmentalist. Definitely had values and standards of how it should be done, and so he started running these dories. They worked good. They really did work, even though you can't hit rocks with them and stuff, they sure are a lot of fun to row. Pretty addicting overall. Anybody who rows one very much kind of gets the idea they're the best boat to row in the Canyon.
Steiger: What was it you told me after the first dory trip we ever did?
Grua: Yeah. It was just like anybody. I think I was no different than anybody: you row a dory and -just like you -you row a dory and you go, "God!" (laughs) I mean, it adds the challenge, it adds that something extra that you'll never get tired of doing this, that you could do this until you died, and then you could get born again and do it another ten, twenty, fifty lifetimes; and you could do it straight through the year, all year long, and you'd never, ever get tired of doing it -never could. Actually, it gets better, I think, with every trip. And then just the dories: they're just alive. They're. . . . You know, they're boats. They take something extra to get them through there. But it's not even that, it's just that. . . . I mean, they're too much fun to row down there! (laughs) It's the funnest thing there is to do, and you could never do anything else once you start doing them -and at least be happy. You might do something else because you felt guilty because you weren't really . . . doing anything with your life, you know. But between them and being in the Grand Canyon, yeah, you just could never do anything else once you start rowing dories -you're hooked. Best drug in the world! (aside about video tape)
Steiger: That was great, Kenton.
***
Steiger: (aside about noise outside)
Grua: It's amazing, you know, seeing how old people are looking. It's just like the old guys like. . . . Georgie, she doesn't look a lot older, but everybody else does! I look around at everybody, and go, "All these guys look pretty old." And then I look in the mirror! (laughs) And I go, "Whoa! Yeah, me too." Looking a little older, just around the edges.
Steiger: It doesn't take very long, does it?
Grua: Eyes don't change, though. I mean, that's what's cool about people: their eyes kind of stay about the same. That's what's great about Georgie: she's just ageless. Her eyes are going to look just that steel blue until the day she dies. They've never changed.
Steiger: Why do you think everybody came here? Can we go over that again? Was it just for Georgie?
Grua: Well, I think we all came here because Georgie is kind of our hero. I mean, you can't help but love her -she's a character. I mean, everybody down here is. That's what's so cool about it, and I think most of us came because we all knew that most of us would come, and we all wanted to see us. And that's what the River Guides is so cool about. Someday it'd be nice to just get together like this about once a year, maybe twice. And we kind of do. You know, it's getting more and more, there's more and more people at each meeting. And it's just great to get together and go over what occurred in the last six months or a year. It happened, it's kind of like having a big family. The older we get and the more it goes on, the better it is. And it just, I'm sure will just keep getting better, hopefully. (laughs) Because it's all there is, really, is each other -that's all we've got.
Steiger: Do you think we can get around this Park Service stuff?
Grua: Oh yeah, we'll outlive 'em! (laughs) There's no doubt about it -they all move on. And we've seen them come and go. I mean, shoot, I haven't been here that long, and I've seen six superintendents come and go. You get the bad ones and you get the good ones, and actually, what we need to remember is, that every time one comes in, they're absolutely clueless, and you've kind of got to treat them like you treat a dude, you know. You show them the Canyon, and you show them who you are, and kind of just wow them a little bit, and they're a little easier to deal with. If you don't wow 'em, then yeah, they don't give you the respect you deserve. I mean, I guess you have to. . . . Maybe, I don't know, maybe it's give them a little respect -at least realize that they need a little coaching to realize where they fit into the picture and where we fit in. I mean, we're the ones who really have sort of given our lives to the Canyon -not that that's good or bad, but we care about the place, maybe even more than they do. But you can't just tell them that, you gotta just show them that.
Steiger: Why do you think that is? Why do you think wefeel like that?
Grua: It's the Canyon. It grabs you. It's like "taking the poisoned-pill." You got to have it. After you've had it once, you've gotta have it, it's a drug. It grabs you. I mean, Martin used to say that a lot. It's almost scary when you go down there for your first time, because you realize that, boy, if you do this again, you're going to want to do it again, even more, and again, and you just might end up spending your whole danged life here, and not get anything worthwhile done! (laughs) I agree with everything except the worthwhile part. I think it's really worthwhile, what we're doing down there as river guides.
Steiger: How come?
Grua: We touch a lot of people. We bring a lot of people along and change their lives, permanently probably. Not even probably -for sure. It's just a big family. It's what life is all about, I guess: just passing on the knowledge.
Steiger: Why do you think the place does that to people? What is it about it?
Grua: Well, the place is just so awesome. It's so. . . .
Steiger: Well, do you think the geology has anything to do with it? You know, when they start thinking about. . . . (aside about tape)
Steiger: What is it about the Canyon that. . . . Do you think that the geology has anything to do with it? I say this, and I think about your geology stories and stuff.
Grua: Well, I think that, yeah, what you see is sort of a progression of time, and sort of a timelessness, but an "instant flash picture" of how the earth happens, how it works. Really. I mean, it's the only place in the world, I think, anyway, that you can be a mile deep in the earth and still be getting a sunburn and getting wet and looking up. And you just look up at all this, you see all this time that it took, and yet you realize that all the time that it took to carve the Canyon was just like a couple of days, if you stuck all the rest of it into the space of a year. All the rest of the earth's history, wrapped into one. Yeah, it's more than you can even comprehend, even if you understand it.
Steiger: So what do you think happens to the people you're taking down the river now? What are they looking for when they get there, and what do they find, do you think, on these trips?
Grua: I think when they first get there they're intimidated, most people. I was. I mean, I just kind of go on how I was my first trip. You're just blown away that this river could cut this canyon, that could just go on and on and on. It seems like as the trip goes on, you get into it a few days and it just goes on and on and the Canyon is different every day, different every minute and every second. Huge river and just this unfathomable amount of water is flowing by over these rapids and flats, and the walls just keep getting higher, and it just keeps getting better and better and better and better every day, and it just seems like it's going to go on forever, and then all of a sudden, boom, it's over. You just go, "Wow!" My first trip was like that. And I think most people's first trip, when they come down there, is just like this. . . . It's kind of like it's going on forever and it's like this whole lifetime that goes on and you start out this little baby, and you grow up, but before you know it -and it's probably just like being alive -it's all over, and you want to do it again. It's probably like being alive, really. You know, start out as a baby, and before you know it. . . . You think, as you're really young and you're growing up, you think, "Boy, this is slow! When is my next birthday going to happen?" And you get to be about our age and you go, "Whew! Oh man, I'm not going to really get it all done that I want to do. I want to come back and do this again!" And that's kind of how a river trip is. By the time you get to the end, you go, "Oops! Boy, that went fast! I've got to try that again -go back and run Lava one more time, or run Crystal." Or, "I want to climb up to that cave. I haven't got that checked out." Your list keeps getting bigger and bigger, all the things you've got to do every trip. So you kind of feel like "those poor people," when they first do their first trip, yeah, that was the worst. I always thought, "Boy, I gotta come back and do that again." And most of them, I think, leave going that way. Or not most of them, but a good bunch of them. It doesn't touch everybody like that -some people are just intimidated by it and don't really get past that, maybe. And their reasons for coming in the first place were to tell everybody they came, "Yeah, I did the Grand Canyon," and stuff. And so maybe some of them don't get touched. But even a lot of them do.
Steiger: Do you think it makes them change what they're doing back home?
Grua: Some of them. Boy, yeah, it's caused more than one life change: major, radical divorce, or quit their job and come out and try to do the Canyon. There's a lot of people in Flag[staff] that I've done that to -there they are.
Steiger: So what is it about dories?
Grua: Well, the dories just feel different. They rock around when you step on them. You don't have to blow them up. They just feel different. They're wood, and you know they're like rowing an eggshell down the river, that they could. . . . It's like, even pull in wrong, and you can be sinking. And that adds that element. But it isn't that, it's how they feel in the white water, and even in the flat water. You're just floating on a boat, you know, you're not on a raft. Rafts are cool. Rafts are really neat. I like rowing rafts. After I've been rowing dories for a while, sometimes it's nice to get on a raft and you can pull in any way you want. Or "oops!" if you went over a rock, "Whew! Glad I wasn't in a dory!" (laughs) But there's nothing like them -they just. . . . It's the feel, it's the response, it's the way they handle, it's the way you can like have it at just the right angle at just the right place and you shoot across the river ten feet without even pulling or taking a stroke or anything. You're just like moving. And the way they dive into a big old wave like #6 in Hermit and you're looking at that sucker and you've got it straight and everything's just right, and you see the wave just building and opening for you, and you just dive down the front side of it and up the backside and the boat shoots up to the sky. There's just nothing like it! You just feel yourself, like zero Gs and you're up there and you're hanging onto your oars and your bow is dropping down over the top of the wave into the next wave. It's just like. . . . God! There's just nothing better! no feeling. And a raft, you know, you kind of like (pffttt) into it and over. They're great if you've never been in a dory, but once you've been in a dory, that's it! It's the poison pill, you're finished, you're through, nothing will ever be quite as much fun as rowing one of those dories.
Steiger: I've been trying to explain that to Gail [Lew’s brother, who is running the camera]! (laughs) He doesn't get it yet, but one of these days.
Grua: (to Gail) You haven't been in a dory yet? Gail: (inaudible)
Grua: Oh man, we'll have to take my boat down for a training run, as soon as I get it built. I've got to do that, and a boat for Denise this winter. I don't know how I'm going to do it.
Steiger: Well, holler. Get me in there, let's do some marathon days. (inaudible) I'd love to help you, really would. ...Well how do you think it is for the people to ride in them?
Grua: It's the same way. It's really wild riding in a dory. I mean, I don't know, I think it's definitely more fun to row them. I like riding in the back. That's a great ride, especially if you're on the back seat, because you just get this incredible. . . . It's like in the old Hatch rigs, only like times ten million, the feeling of the slingshot and being on the super rollercoaster ride. Yeah, you're clearing the wave, and it's even more than standing there in the middle. But yeah, riding on them is fun. And in the front, wow, it's just like "face into the water." With a dory, it's different -even a rowing raft... in a motor rig, you're way up there, and you kind of feel like you're a little bit further away from the experience. You're insulated a little bit from the river. You know the motor rig is just going to deal with it. You're not going to have to move real quick, you're not going to have to dive into that high side or you're upside down. Or you're not going to have to deal with being upside down. You're probably not going to flip. Then a raft, it's even that same way. They're so stable. I mean, they're twice as stable as a dory. I think a dory is as stable as a raft if you hit it straight, maybe more so, if you hit something straight. But in a raft you can hit something a little off, which is when you get in trouble- any time you hit it a little bit off... in a dory, if you're a little bit off, you'd better be doing the right thing. And the right thing is not necessarily hit it straight or hang on or anything else, it's high side. And you'd better hope all your people are doing it too, or you're upside down. It's that element of "Yeah, this is real life, and we could be swimming." Once you've done it, then you really realize, "Yeah, this is. . . ." And it's easy to flip, it's really easy. (laughs) You know, I went for about three years without flipping, when I first started rowing dories, and I was thinking, "Oh man, this is pretty easy." I mean, you could tell they're tippy and stuff, but if you're right on, the high side is just right. . . . But sooner or later you don't, and you go over, and you just go, "Whoa! (laughs) this is pretty serious! I'm upside down! What now?!" Even that's okay, as long as you don't trash your boat, which is often the case. I think I've flipped, how many times? eight now. And of those eight, I've hurt my boat all but about three times, and we've had to do some work when you get home.
But that's just. . . . Yeah, the feeling of a golden trip in a dory, after you've. . . . And it doesn't matter how many you've done, it never will matter how many trips that you've done: you do a golden trip and it feels just as good as the last time you had one, and you want to go have another one.
Steiger: That's the poison pill right there.
Grua: And the only way to really know it is to do it. It'd be the best thing if every boatman down there, every boatman that's really a true boatman that loves the Grand Canyon -motorboatmen especially -could at least once -of course, you can't do it once -could row a dory through the Grand Canyon. . . . I think everybody kind of feels that way. I know when I was running those motor rigs, that's what I wanted to do, as soon as I saw those dories.
I saw Martin in 1969 when he did his Major Powell trip, and it was a scream. Martin Litton standing there, his arm tucked into his pants. (laughs) Don't know what he was doing with his hand! (laughs)
Steiger: Into his pants?
Grua: Well, he had this coat on, you know, and an empty sleeve, newspaper down inside the sleeve to make it look like he had half an arm like Major Powell, and he was playing Major Powell and all that. It was pretty hokey. All the boats had these ten names, each of Powell's boats. The dories didn't really look much like Powell's boats, you know, in actuality, looking back on it. They went through and did this Powell centennial trip. See, 1969 was a hundred years after Major Powell, and that was my first year. And so I was running for Hatch, did a lot of trips that year. There were two competing wooden boat companies doing a Powell sort of centennial trip. Of course, you know, rubber boats wouldn't really do for Powell. So back in those days, Gaylord Staveley had. . . . Because Nevills had died several years before that in a plane crash, Nevills and his wife. But he ran the only wooden boat company, called Mexican Hat Expeditions. Gaylord Staveley who had married Nevills' daughter, Joan, was running Mexican Hat Expeditions, and not really digging it too much. He never really, as far as I could tell, enjoyed rowing wooden boats. Some people get intimidated by them. I've never run one of those old cataract boats that Nevills ran. But anyway, he was not really into them, and he was more of a businessman than old Martin. So his idea, and not very long after that centennial trip he put it into effect, was to take Norm's company and turn it into a real business and run motor trips down through there, and that's what they're doing now as Canyoneers. It happened in the early 1970s, before 1973.
But they were doing a trip, and so was Martin Litton. Got to see both of them going through there. Of course Martin was kind of supported. Martin, at that time, worked for the L.A. Times, I think it was, and Sunset. So he had support for the trip, and Gaylord never did, I don't think, quite forgive Martin for that, because he felt like he was the wooden boat company. Martin had privately done a few trips through there, but he wasn't even a company in 1969 -he started in 1971 as a company. But he did the centennial trip that got all the press. And Gaylord's trip got coverage by a few of the little local papers, maybe the Phoenix paper covered it, and maybe the Flagstaff Sun covered it, but. . . .
Steiger: When and how did Martin decide to name the boats?
Grua: Well, that was before I came there. Martin Litton was on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club, and he was pretty instrumental in keeping the dams out of the Grand Canyon, and was always into fighting -still is -the environmental battles and the Sequoias and stuff. I don't know how he came about it, but it was a darned good idea to name the boats after places that man had pretty much done a number on, at least for our lifetimes.
Steiger: What are some of those names?
Grua: My old boat that I got. . . . Well, first I rowed the Chattahoochee. I don't know how he came across that one. Actually, there was an early chapter of the Sierra Club that really helped out in the Grand Canyon dam battles -I think it was the Georgia chapter -and they called it the Chattahoochee Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Chattahoochee River flows down through there -Georgia and the panhandle of Florida out into the Gulf. And they did quite a number on it, channelizing it and building dams, and what they do to rivers back there. They pretty much did it to all of them. And he liked the name. And that was one of the early boats: the Chattahoochee was one of the first five or six boats that he had. The Emerald Mile was the first one, and that was his pet baby, next to the Grand Canyon, I'd say, was Redwoods National Park. He was probably the sole person responsible for that, if it came right down to it, for who got the redwoods set aside in Redwoods National Park. It was one of the last national parks to be established. He worked long and hard on that. The Emerald Mile, which was the first boat that was built by Jerry Briggs, which is what most of our wood boats are, that we're still running, was. . . . It was actually his favorite name, I think.
Steiger: What were some of the other ones?
Grua: Oh, the Music Temple, Mille Crag Bend. He named them after a lot of things: Diablo Canyon -that was his kind of favorite boat after he'd got his fleet established. He had this monster boat built -way too high on the sides. I always told him, "How about if I take a Skill saw and just kind of go around the old boat and cut it down about three or four inches on the gunnels and make it into a more reasonable-size boat for you." "Oooooo," he'd always say, "no, way!" I'd say, "Well, I'll even do it for free." I kept. . . . Did it up until just a couple of years ago when I started standing up and decided that was the way to go. And now actually the gunnels on the boat that I'm building are not quite as high as the gunnels on the Diablo Canyon, but way higher than I used to think that you'd ever want to have your gunnels! (laughs) Kind of funny how I came around.
Steiger: Give me a few more names.
Grua: Oh, let's see, more names. God, I know them like my own kids, except I don't have any kids! (laughs) After a party like last night, it's hard. Well, there's the. . . .
Steiger: (inaudible)
Grua: Yeah, I ought to know that one, huh? Rowed the Tuolomne all year this year. First time I've rowed a company boat since the Chattahoochee, since more than like twelve years. Rowed the Tuolomne all year, and the Phantom, the Dark Canyon, Makaha. Oh, God, some beautiful names. A lot of them from Glen Canyon. Okeechobee from the swamp. Okeechobee, yeah, from the Okeechobee close to the Okefenokee Swamp -places they've drained. All over, you know. I guess he got kind of international: the Makaha is in Hawaii. All the aluminum boats that he named after the aluminum factories up in British Columbia: the Ootsa Lake and. . . . Gadzooks! My memory, Lew!
Steiger: That's okay. Mono Lake?
Grua: Mono Lake, Colorado, Lake Tahoe. We got probably well over thirty dories, altogether: Bright Angel. I kind of remember one called Bright Angel, one of my favorite names. My next boat, the Grand Canyon. I don't know if we've screwed that one up or not. I think it's pretty reasonable, though. Definitely the last forty miles of the Grand Canyon is kind of messed up. The whole thing is messed up. I mean, you know, Glen Canyon Dam "did it" to the Grand Canyon. There's no. . . . The only way we could really mitigate what happened -and even then it wouldn't mitigate what happened by building the dams -is getting rid of them. Some day, that'll probably happen. It might not be in our lifetimes, but then again it might. They almost went in 1983 -both of them, actually. A lot of damage to Hoover Dam. But of the things that I would like to see happen more than anything else, that's probably, yeah, I'd like to see maybe Hoover Dam go first, just because I never did get to see Glen Canyon and I get to see that lower part of the Grand Canyon all the time. They really destroyed. . . . There's something about it -I think it's the quiet, that gets to me the most. You get down there, and get through Bridge Canyon Rapid, get on down to about [Mile] 242 where we camp that last night, or beyond there, and you camp and you can hear a pin drop in the Canyon. It's like they've sort of just snuffed out the life of the Canyon. Everything is just sort of in a coma -it's not really dead, but it's not even breathing on its own and it needs the river to be back, and it needs to be making that river sound. That river sound, that's what it takes. It's hard to even sleep down there. You know, you go to sleep on the rig, and I'm up all night -it's too quiet, something's missing. So, yeah, if I could change anything, it would be [to] get rid of those dams. Maybe I will someday, but probably not 'til I get to be Georgie's age. (laughs) See if I can do something about it. I pray about it a lot.
Steiger: Well, it'll happen over time, though, won't it?
Grua: Over time, yeah. In just a fraction. I mean, since the Grand Canyon has been as deep as it is now, which is probably 30-40 million years, which is, if you put it all into the space of a year, a few days... then the Grand Canyon has been dammed up with one lake. A million years ago it was like more than twice the size of Hoover and Lake Powell put together, and it didn't last more than maybe 10-15 thousand years, which is nothing. It's a long time to us, because our perspective in that year is about a half-a-second if we live to be as old as old Georgie, and doing pretty good if you get that far. So (laughs) you know. . . . Grand Canyon.
[END OF INTERVIEW]